"entertaining" overvalued?

[Anonymous]

I really love having people over and I wish I had a big formal dining room and a huge living room for Christmas. But, we’re able to have smaller dinners and for cocktail parties I remove some of the furniture. C’est la vie.

One thing I really miss is that since our dining area is small, the table is narrow - there’s no way to have a real centerpiece or serve food on the table. I always have to plate or do a buffet in the kitchen.

[Anonymous]

We bought a tiny house, because we knew we didn't like to entertain large groups. We love having our friends over... but one family at a time, and we can fit that. Barely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I really love having people over and I wish I had a big formal dining room and a huge living room for Christmas. But, we’re able to have smaller dinners and for cocktail parties I remove some of the furniture. C’est la vie.

One thing I really miss is that since our dining area is small, the table is narrow - there’s no way to have a real centerpiece or serve food on the table. I always have to plate or do a buffet in the kitchen.

That's so much better, anyway. Family style sucks. Everyone notices (and sometimes comments) on how much or how little you take (or what you don't take at all). It's pass/pass/pass/awkward pass, and then your food is cold. Conversation and eating is interrupted by passing more things around. And with kids and elderly diners, you can't pass hot or heavy dishes around without worrying if someone is going to get hurt or drop something.

[Anonymous]

Glad you brought this up. We rented a 3 bedroom house because we thought we were gonna start a family (instead dealt with infertility) and thought we’d entertain w/ people spending the night.

Guess what? We’ve entertained maybe 4 times in the two years we’ve been here and only one family has spent the night once. We probably could’ve stayed in our one bedroom apartment. Still, when we buy a house I would like space to entertain since it’s nice to have the option.

[Anonymous]

we had a small house with a small dining room and a galley kitchen that only people fit in. we have a large extended family close by (with Sunday dinner gatherings every 2 weeks) and could only host when it was warm enough to be outside. so for us, it was important when looking for our current house. now our typical gathering of ~12-14 adults and ~5-7 kids fit. Kids eat at the eat in kitchen table and adults sit in the dining room.

[Anonymous]

I now have a 2 guest rooms since the kids are out of the house but had people over, sometimes for days, with no guest rooms. I often kicked one of the kids out of their rooms so that guests could sleep there, they never minded. I have a small dining room but manage to squeeze 10 people in there for Thanksgiving and Christmas. We also set up a table in the kitchen for the "kids" (the oldest is now 37). We have a great time!!

I will say if I ever win the lottery, I will build a party barn with a stainless steel restaurant kitchen. I would love to have a big party and then walk over to my nice, clean house.

[Anonymous]

Know yourselves and how you like to entertain. Some people entertain a lot. And others? Not so much.

Some people love to have overnight guests and think the best thing in the world is a packed house. Others? Not so much.

Think more about the space you need on a day to day basis to make things work for your family. My mother would love for us to have an inlaw suite. She'd like us to move and buy a bigger house. But it's our house and our money.

[Anonymous]

My old house was 1,600 square feet and we regularly hosts family parties for my kids birthdays and holidays. 3-5 Usually 45-50 people 4-6 times a year.

My new house is 6,000 square feet. Nobody comes by. It is further away and people dont like going to big houses for parties, they feel you are showing off. They like small houses so they can feel like the important onces

[Anonymous]

I like having a house where we can have people over when we want. But it's not why I bought the house. Our house is FAR from perfect for entertaining, but we have people over frequently. Mainly because we enjoy seeing our friends/family.

Having a powder room is nice for this, but also for just our daily lives. I don't want to go upstairs to pee.

[Anonymous]

I think people imagine that a certain house will make them into the kind of people who throw fancy parties, etc. Sort of like people who buy/renovate to get a huge, high-end kitchen.

But the fact is, if you are the kind of person who really likes to entertain, then you'll do it when you live in the 800 sf apartment. If you really like to cook, you'll do in it your tiny galley kitchen. If you already do those things, then it makes sense to look for features that make it easier/nicer if you buy a new house.

If you don't, then it's just buying into HGTV or someone else's idea of what your house is supposed to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My old house was 1,600 square feet and we regularly hosts family parties for my kids birthdays and holidays. 3-5 Usually 45-50 people 4-6 times a year.

My new house is 6,000 square feet. Nobody comes by. It is further away and people dont like going to big houses for parties, they feel you are showing off. They like small houses so they can feel like the important onces

Projecting jealousy onto other people is stupid. I have no problem going to a big house for a party, and I don't feel "more important" at a party at a smaller house. (That says so much about your insecurities and values.) But if you live further away, it's more of a hassle to get there. And maybe your parties aren't as much fun now, because you've changed how you host to "match" your oversized house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I met with some builders and they kept talking about entertaining. I don't want people in my house. This is for me, not to show off.

For many, it's not about "showing off"; it's about connecting, sharing, actually spending time together and talking to one another in an increasingly isolated, removed world. This comes up a lot, mostly in the Food forum. I hate the misconception that inviting people to your home, wanting them to have a good time, and sharing a special experience with them is "showing off."

OP here and I agree with you but that's WHY I don't feel like I need to plan my house around it. I have friends over all the time, am the primary host of playdates, and have even pulled off my share of family holidays but I think part of my attitude about it stems from not thinking guests need a lot of special accommodations built into my house. Years ago we set up a bunch of borrowed card tables and threw tablecloths over them and had a 20 person dinner party in a 1 bedroom apartment. It's one of my fondest hosting memories. So my post wasn't about not wanting to entertain it was about thinking the emphasis on it in homebuying is overblown. Even as a person who really enjoys hosting, it is a very small fraction of the time I'm actually in my home. And usually it's a small group and/ or 1 person who doesn't need any kind of accommodation beyond what I personally already find comfortable.

I think this is a very individual preference thing. Years ago, I did the borrowed card tables thing too, and yes, you can make it work, but I'm older now and don't want to have to "make things work" if it's not absolutely necessary. I like being able to seat 12 at my dining room table, I like a LR/DR area that flows well, I like having a separate guest area with its own bathroom. (That last thing doubles as my home office, which is another thing I love having - my own dedicated work space for teleworking.)

I don't want to have to share a bathroom with guests or for that matter, have my teenagers do so. Could it be done? Of course. Is it preferable? Not to me.

I don't need HGTV-level space - our house is a 1950s rambler - but I do need space that works comfortably for us in the vast majority of circumstances.

[Anonymous]

To a certain extent, yes, it's overvalued. But coming from a townhouse where we didn't have much socializing space and moving to a SFH where we now have a family room we can comfortably fit 8 or so people in plus an empty living room (no furniture yet) where the kids can run amuck has been great. We also now have a deck off of our family room which gives us one large indoor/outdoor space. Plus, we have a large kitchen that people can comfortably socialize in.

None of these things is super huge or remodeled (I think the kitchen's about twenty years old) but it's the *space* that we didn't have before that we value for casual entertaining purposes. We can also now easily have kid birthday parties in our home which we couldn't do before.

Our friends have a house that's technically larger than ours but their layout gives them a very small kitchen/family room space. Their house is very difficult to socialize comfortably in b/c we all basically stand the entire time around the kitchen island/bar and constantly move out of the way of people trying to squeeze by.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My old house was 1,600 square feet and we regularly hosts family parties for my kids birthdays and holidays. 3-5 Usually 45-50 people 4-6 times a year.

My new house is 6,000 square feet. Nobody comes by. It is further away and people dont like going to big houses for parties, they feel you are showing off. They like small houses so they can feel like the important onces

Those are a lot of assumptions you are making, LOL.

[Anonymous]

I agree it's somewhat overvalued

Like how many times do you need to host 200 people in a giant mansion?

Better to just buy a modest house and rent a space for occasions like that

That being said, we like hosting groups of ~ 10-20 often and being able to do that is important to us